40/18
Rose Cotter: What are you?
Narrative
After witnessing a strange, traumatic incident involving a patient, a psychiatrist becomes increasingly convinced that he is being threatened by a strange being. In the days leading up to the film’s release on September 30, 2022, the cast appeared at various baseball games while sitting on the back of the house, standing still and smiling, staring into the camera, not moving, despite the understandable concern of fans in Smile T-shirts in the crowd. Another soon appeared in the background with the audience during the Today show. At about the 31-minute mark, Rose breaks the glass when her alarm clock goes off. When the glass is visible on his feet, he is wearing socks. A few seconds later, when he checks the door, he is wearing lace-up shoes. Based on what happens later in the party, there are several continuity issues that are not necessarily “bugs” but may actually be intended to show “discontinuities”; In Rose’s consciousness/wisdom.
'Smile' isn’t it
Why are you doing this to me? Monstrousness: Because your mind is so inviting. Paramount’s opening and closing logos feature a curved smiley line at the base of a mountain. Featured in Chris Stuckmann’s movie reviews: Smile (2022). LollipopBy Beverley Ross & Julius Dixon performed by The Chordettes. I was pretty excited for this movie, I’m not going to lie. I wasn’t expecting anything from the 11-time Oscar winner, but I was expecting an intense, edge-of-your-seat horror fest like “Insidious”; or “Sinister,” where the movie exudes creepy unease from start to finish.
the phone rings
What 'Smile' does well is to build up the jump scare, but unfortunately (and more importantly) ‘Smile’ forgets to deliver a scare in each of these sequences, repeated throughout the long 2 hour run. For example, the main character looks down a dark corridor as the music gets tense and the camera slowly zooms in, then. VOICE. This is NOT a scare! This is just lazy and above all annoying. These "jump scares" occur throughout the film and are extremely disastrous. I can respect jump scares if there is something scary at the end of the build-up, not just an annoyingly loud sound that has nothing to do with the tension you just wasted.
THIS is a justified scare
An example of a true jump scare would be when the lipstick demon first appears on the table in ‘Insidious’. ‘Smile’ and the way the characters reveal it is almost identical to ‘The Ring’. It didn’t break any new ground, which was to be expected, but at least I was expecting a bit more originality than ‘The Ring’ with a good amount of ‘Following’ copied as well, but it’s much less than both films. I think the ending when the demon finally reveals itself was pretty good. The design of the demon and what it does to its victims is actually pretty cool/gross. Unfortunately, the movie ended when we are introduced to the Smile demon. Too bad because this movie could have been a wall-to-wall ball-chilling thriller.
Overall, this movie has been done before and done much better
The score of this movie was arguably the best and scariest part. The music reminded me of the music in ‘Sinister’ because there was something strange about it that made it haunting. There are moments, but it just goes on for far too long without any fear.6/10.